Seeing the write up on the homepage that there was going to be a WWII demo game at the JOS17 and the rules being used were “For 6mm Scale Models” I thought as Billy Connolly said about the advert for incontinence pants. That's for me.. So I purchased them from Games at War that produces them in the States. In total £30 with postage thinking there may be something in the rules I could use. Now I've never in my life thought so strongly about a ruleset that I have to write what I am about to. This ruleset changes all that. This year sees the 40th year that I've been wargaming and I have never seen a worse set of WWII rules in those 40 years.

I've had Firefly for many years now and that has several hundred listings of AFV's artillery aircraft etc, army lists for every major participant. Kampfgruppe Commander II, which I also have, has about 12 pages of charts with 250+ entries of AFV's artillery etc, and army lists for all major participants, the same as Firefly. I also have a Fistful of Tows 3. For the WWII section it has 30+ pages of data charts with something like 700 entries for every variant of AFV, ATG, aircraft etc with page after page of army lists for every major nation. You see where I'm going with this. Any WWII ruleset needs adequate data charts covering the entirety of WWII. No matter how good or innovative the rules are if it hasn't got adequate data charts it's next to useless.

So what do you get with Brigadier General Commands. Well there are NO data charts at all for the British, French, Polish, Italians, Japanese or the Soviets. The only charts you get are for the Americans and the Germans. So you can't use these rules to fight any battle whatsoever between the Germans and the aforementioned countries except the Americans. Unless you only use infantry. This is deplorable.

So what do you get with the American and German charts? Several hundred, a few dozen listings of AFVs, ATG's, artillery. No. In total you get 13 American weapons and 14 German weapons listed. Pitiful. I'll list the Germans and the stats for each weapon on the chart. Weapon ranges are in a separate chart of their own.

251 Half Track HMG

222 20mm HMG secondary

234/1 20mm HMG secondary.

Light mortar 50mm rifles secondary.

234/2 50mm rifles secondary.

Medium Mortar 81mm rifles secondary.

234/4 75mm rifles secondary.

Stug III 75mm HMG secondary.

JgdPz IV 75mm HMG secondary

Pz V Panther 75mm HMG secondary

88mm FlaK 88mm rifles secondary

Pz VI Tiger 88mm HMG secondary

105mm Artillery 105mm rifles secondary

150mm artillery 150mm rifles secondary

and that's it. That's all you get from the entire German arsenal of WWII. It doesn't even give you the month/year that it was in service from

There are no MkI, II, III or MkIV panzers, very few Hanomag variants, no SPAA, no Marders, no Hetzer, no JagdPanther, no Ferdinand/Elefant, no JagdTiger, no King Tiger. No ATG's apart from the 88. No aircraft. And a pitiful 2 artillery pieces  listed and I'm sure lot's of other weapon types that I haven't listed. This is appalling.

I won't list the American I'll just list what you don't get.

No M3 halftracks of any variant, so no 75mm GMC, no quad 50cal AA, no M24 Chaffee, no M18 Hellcat, no M4 jumbo, no M26 Pershing, no ATG's whatsover, no aircraft and again only 2 artillery pieces listed. 105 and 155mm. No engineer vehicles for either side.

These data charts are a joke and to be honest lazily put together. If you had a platoon of Pershings up against a platoon of King Tigers you can't resolve any combat between them because they're not on the data charts. What about a T34/85 against a MkIV. No sorry you can't do that either, no Soviet charts at all and no MkIV's on the German chart.

On the cover these rules are described as a World War II Strategy Wargame. These rules I'm afraid to say are not designed to recreate the battles of WWII in it's entirety rather than to fight a single battle or two of a small campaign between the Americans and the Germans where the historical weapons/vehicles used in that campaign are the only ones listed in the charts. Pathetic.

So no matter how good these rules are the pathetically limited charts make them totally useless for recreating WWII battles.

If you are going to the JOS17 and see the demo game using these rules and are thinking of buying them. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE pick up a copy and look through it. The charts come on a single A4 sized laminate sheet. See for yourself the total inadequacy of them. Ask Mr Shaw, the author, why are there no charts for Britain, Russia, France? etc, Why are the only charts so inadequate to make them useless to be honest. A total waste of money. Use that money to buy some Baccus figures.

Gen G S Patton would give Mr Daniel T Shaw a good slap over the head for this effort

If I think of anything else I'll repost

Nigel 

I've thought of something else. These rules are going straight in the bin or nailed to the back door of the outside toilet. That's what I think of Mr Daniel T Shaws's rules and charts or lack there of.

Not a man to pull his punches. Were I into WWII it would have put me right off that rule set. I always understood that the appeal of WWII was the joy of variety and minutiae.